Experts predict reforming papacy of Pope Leo XIV

In the recent conclave, the cardinals felt they wanted a pope who would be more collegial in his governance, said Austen Ivereigh.

Pope Leo XIV’s papacy will be a reforming one, particularly focused on governance, with more synodality embedded in the Church and more collegiality practiced, according to author and commentator, Austen Ivereigh.

In The Tablet webinar, “Where next for the Catholic Church?” Dr Ivereigh, an expert on synodality, stressed that “no pontificate starts from nowhere”. He said the pontificate of Pope Leo “is particularly the fruit of very rich deliberations by the cardinals in the run up to the conclave.”

Pope Francis, he said, had forged a “new era in the church”. However, some cardinals wanted to go “backwards” and had used words like order, authority or tradition for what they wanted to return to.

The papal biographer said that in many ways, on governance, Pope Francis had been very limited. “He was a great reformer, to use the term of my first book, and great reformers are disruptors. They often disrupt the system.”

In the recent conclave, the cardinals felt they wanted a pope who would be more collegial in his governance.

Referring to Pope Leo’s choice of name in reference to Rerum Novarum as well as his focus on Artificial Intelligence, Dr Ivereigh warned, “We have a very exciting teaching opportunity” on a technology “which threatens to be deeply dehumanising”.

It was following on from Pope Francis who put ecological concern and migration at the heart of his pontificate, “the two most pressing issues of his era”.

Writer and journalist Margaret Hebblethwaite, an expert on the Church in Latin America, described Pope Leo as “a son of Francis”. She highlighted that St Francis Assisi’s closest companion was Brother Leo.

In her talk, the former assistant editor of The Tablet said two things making liberal Catholics “a bit nervous” were Pope Leo’s 2012 comments on alternative families composed of same sex couples and their adopted children.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s at all homophobic, and I doubt that he is, but we have to wait to see exactly where he is on that, because we don’t know.”

The other issue was women. “Leo is a canon lawyer. So what I wonder is whether he is going to be leading some changes in canon law, because canon law is very machista. It’s very against women. It very clericalist as well.”

The “first test”, she suggested, will be whether Pope Leo publishes the report of the study group on women deacons which is due in June 2025 and “what he does about it”. Something else to watch is how he brings synodality into canon law.

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